I wasn't exaggerating when I said that coming home from Florida was hard. I had a great time, and between fun-withdrawal and sleep-deprivation, I was feeling pretty low Sunday morning on the drive back home. Then I realized that I forgot my pillow in the condo. Then I got the call from my landlady to move everything in my room out by the morning. Then I got home to a sink of dirty dishes, a load of laundry, an almost-empty fridge, and a feel of being completely overwhelmed and defeated. I'm not going to lie to you; I cried last night. I cried on my parents' couch, in front of my family, somewhere between a story about Sarah's engagement and my mom's gracious and unexpected gifting of a binding machine I borrow sometimes for my classroom. I left shortly after dinner. I just wanted to go home and cry in my room. And then I remembered that I wouldn't have a room this week. Instead, I had to go home and move furniture.
I moved everything, and then sat in the living room for a minute, checking Facebook. My sub from the day had sent me a message about how a kid wet herself in my classroom and how the class didn't get much done that day. Then she asked to be my Facebook friend. And I deleted her request, unwilling to play friend to someone I don't really know, before brushing my teeth and getting into bed. I fell asleep slowly in an island of a bed, in a room that didn't look much like mine anymore.
The morning was slow-moving, and I arrived at school later than I wanted to a stack of ungraded papers; my college helper had only gotten through one class out of six. My inbox was full of emails. My box in the office was full of paperwork. My desk was messy. I realized that I hadn't copied anything for my fourth grade class yet for the day. I realized that I needed to fill out logs for students in my homeroom class. I remembered that after I finished grading everything, I had to record how many students missed every question on the exam. That's 150 students times 30+ questions. My to-do list began to feel like a pillow pressed to the face, slowly asphyxiating me with its ever-increasing workload.
I got done what I could do, and I made it out to morning meeting before the end of the pledge (read: late). One of my students was absent (meaning more work for me), and another forgot her backpack (meaning more work for me). When we got upstairs, a student said to me, "Oh, I thought that our sub was going to be here today." I replied, "Ouch. Are you that disappointed to see me?" I instantly felt bad. She just needed to give something back to the sub. Her comment had nothing to do with me, but I'd passed on a piece of my dark cloud to her anyway. Guilt set in.
My planning period was a wash. I received a flurry of emails from my realtor, loan officer, and an elevation/shoring contractor about estimates. I spent half of the hour leaving voicemails with roofers who never called me back, and the other half hour marking numerous fifth grade tests with Cs, Ds, and Fs (in other words, inviting parents to send me angry emails). My coworker tried to reassure me at lunch. "It'll all work out," she said. I may have grunted ungratefully. She was right, I'd get it done; I always do. But it felt (feels) so far from possible.
There was a section of time today that was not so terrible, horrible, very bad. The kids were really good for me today, for the most part, and my homeroom even took care of themselves enough to allow me to do a little grading as they worked on a research activity. I also had the foresight to cancel my normal Tuesday afternoon tutoring hour, so I was able to get more grading done in the hour after dismissal. Three classes graded and recorded, three to go.
I rushed out of school at 4:40 in order to get back home in time to change and get to volleyball before the doubles tournament began at 5. I walked into the house, walked up to my bedroom door, opened it, and proceeded to shout incoherently. This is what my room looks like today:
Both of my closets are taped up. My bed was moved in front of my dresser in the back room, despite the fact that my landlady told me it could stay in the room. I had to move both the mattress and the box spring off the dresser just to get to the shorts, sports bra, t-shirt, and socks, and I had to force open a closet door to get my shoes. I had to change in the bathroom. They'd taken down the fan. They'd taken down the curtains. Everything was taped and covered. This looked like it would take days, if not a week. The thought made me angry, and it made me want to cry, but I had nowhere private in the whole of my house to be sad.
I made it to volleyball only a few minutes late, but I had a hard time getting focused and feeling motivated to move and be aggressive. I felt bad that I wasn't playing up to par for my partner. We ended up losing in the finals 11-8. More guilt.
I shared my frustrations with some friends, who offered their support (and complimented my eyebrows...hey-o!), and then I remembered that I still needed to go to the grocery store. Commence more cursing and a side trip to the store.
After putting away the small number of groceries that I hope will last me until the weekend, I called my landlady. Her son picks up and tells me that she's gone off to her "little sewing circle" and should be back later tonight. I asked if he knew anything about the timeline on the room. "I think they said it shouldn't be later than Friday," he ventured. You think they would've called to tell me this sometime today, considering that I left a note on my bed this morning asking for information. Of course, I was pretty pissed last night when she and her sons came over to move my dresser and another piece of furniture out of the room. So maybe they're scared to tell me. They should be. I'm f***ing pissed.
And really, really overwhelmed and sad.
I don't know what to say or do. It's a collision of too many things all at once. It's draining me. And I have no place to recharge. God help me get through this week.
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